Today has been a very interesting day! At about mid day I received an e-mail informing me of my flight details back to the UK! I was so excited that I went round informing everyone I could find that I was returning on then 2nd of July and would return to the Ukraine on he 28th of August.
An hour and a half later the situation had changed.
I had heard that one of the teachers had been asked to go over to another city and cover the work load there until more teachers could come over and I had also heard via the grapevine that he was less than happy at the prospect of uprooting and changing cities. So perhaps I should have expected the phone call that I received requesting if I would go over to Donetsk and help out there for my last 3 weeks before I returned to England.
I didn't really know what to say, mainly due to the fact that I only had a minute till my next lesson and I knew that I had to get my head into lesson mode. When I finally managed to get to a quieter spot in a lesson and the shock waves had faded, I found my mind returning to the prospect of shifting over to Donetsk this weekend [oh yes it really would be in only 3 days time!] and what the implications were.
At first I started to think about all the good things, like getting to see the teachers over there, who I haven't really had a chance to see that much recently, and getting to teach some new groups and spending more time in a different city. However, unfortunately, my thoughts quickly shifted to the negative sides of the whole affair.
Firstly there are all my plans for the last weeks that I have to cancel, then there are all my friends here who I will barely get to see before the end. Including my friend Mari who is going to France this weekend. As such unless one of us goes to visit the other then we won't actually see each other before she leaves!
Then I started to think about my lessons and to be honest I started to think selfishly. I had only a few days of intensive Kids classes and then our timetables reduce. So if I am going to a different city I can be pretty certain that the work loads is about to increase exponentially (and I know they have morning classes at 7:30 am!). Then I started to think about whether I could really reject the request and I knew that if I couldn't then it was very unlikely that anyone else could, after all some of them have cats, and don't usually travel anyway. Some have husbands and many are actually from this city so it would be a lot harder for them to actually leave.
So basically I had worked out that it wasn't ideal for me, but it was what I probably had to do, unless I wanted to stick my tongue out act like a child and kick up a big fuss. And so, as can so often happen in life, all my plans have been ripped asunder and the rock of planning and preparing has been laid bared.
